Saturday, November 09, 2013

A Musical Century with the Humboldt Bay Brass Band

 Many events celebrate the HSU centennial but few will have this authentic touch: a locally created tune from the era of the school’s founding, played on the actual instrument of one of its founders. That’s part of the Humboldt Bay Brass Band concert on Saturday November 9 that features a signature tune from every decade of the past hundred years.

 The first is Eureka March, composed in 1914. The Band will use several vintage instruments of the time, including a tuba once owned by Leonard Yocum, whose name is enshrined as a Humboldt Founder in Founders Hall.

 Humboldt Bay Brass Band director Dr. Gil Cline, who arranged the band’s version of “Eureka March,” recently found some film from 1914 which he believes shows this very tuba being played in Sequoia Park.

 Yocum gave the tuba to Arcata High School musician Margaret Monroe, who graduated in 1938. A few years ago she sent it to Cline. “We will use this tuba in our concert,” he said, “as well as a cornet dating to 1914 and a local bass drum dating to the early 1920s.”

 In addition to Cline’s arrangement of the “Eureka March,” the Band plays “Ja-Da” from the 1920s from actual music sheets used in Humboldt for dances of that decade.

 Other tunes representing subsequent decades—mostly on the light and popular side--include Glenn Miller’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man, “South Pacific,” “Day Tripper,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Thriller.”

 The Humboldt Bay Brass Band performs its only local concert of the year on Saturday November 9 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $8/$5, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. Directed by Gilbert Cline. An HSU Music Department production.

Media: Tri-City Weekly, Mad River Union, HSU Now

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